Chicago Board of Education sets up a 3 year project with Chicago Comprehensive Care Centers in a YWCA building.

Eleanor Roosevelt appoints Chicago labor leader Addie Wyatt to serve on the Labor Legislation Committee of the Commission on the Status of Women.

1964

Congress passes the Civil Rights Act that includes Title VII prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex .

The War in Viet Nam escalates as the US begins bombing North Viet Nam.

The Free Speech Movement at Berkeley launches a sit-in and strike to protest restrictions on student political activity. Among the participants are Vivian Rothstein and Jo Freeman who later become organizers in the women's liberation movement

University of Chicago student Heather Booth goes South to register voters as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer.

1965

Casey Hayden and Mary King circulate a memo about sexism in Civil Rights Movement.

The "Woman Question" is raised for the first time at a Students for Democratic Society (SDS) conference.

First national anti-war protest held in Washington D.C.

Equal Employment Opportunity Commissioners (EEOC) were appointed to enforce of the Civil Rights Act. Aileen Hernandez, a future president of NOW, was the only woman appointed.

President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act.

In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court strikes down the one remaining state law prohibiting the use of contraceptives

Heather Booth does her first abortion referral. This eventually leads to the founding of Jane, the Abortion Counseling Service.

Vivian Rothstein goes to North Viet Nam to see the effects of the war and learns of the importance of women's organizations.

Women attending the New Politics Conference in Chicago are subjected to sexist abuse leading to further growth of the women's liberation movement.

The Westside Group, an early consciousness raising group, is organized in Chicago.

Women's Radical Action Project (WRAP) organizes at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Carl Meyer signs an executive order approving the dispensing of birth control at Cook County Hospital.

1968

New York feminists bury a dummy of "Traditional Womanhood" at the all-women's Jeanette Rankin Brigade demonstration against the war in Vietnam in Washington, D.C.

For the first time, feminists use the slogan "Sisterhood is Powerful."

First public speakout against abortion laws is held in NYC.

Women protest the Miss America Beauty Pageant in Atlantic City.

First national women's liberation conference held in Lake Villa, IL.

Notes from the First Year, a women's liberation theoretical journal is published by the New York Radical Women.

First issue of the Voice of Women's Liberation appears with Jo Freeman as the editor.

April 4, 1968: Dr. Martin Luther King is assassinated. Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley issues his infamous,"Shoot to Kill" orders when riots break out on the Westside.

August 1968: Police attack anti-war protestors at the Democratic National Convention.

1969

Gays and lesbians resist a police raid at the Stonewall Bar in New York City launching the gay liberation movement.

Southern Students' Organizing committee has made Women's Liberation one of the topics covered by their speakers bureau.

The Women's Revolutonary Liberation Front in Boston has set up a female co-operative commune.

Women from Ohio State University SDS form a women's liberation group

Members of Redstockings disrupt a hearing on abortion laws of the New York State legislature when the panel of witnesses turns out to be fourteen men and one nun. They demand repeal, not reform, of abortion laws.

NOW celebrates Mother's Day with the slogan "Rights, Not Roses.

National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (NARAL) founded.

Redstockings, a radical feminist group organizes. and introduces such terms as "Sisterhood is Powerful", and "The Personal is Political".

US Representative Shirley Chisholm of Brooklyn took office.

The Urban Preceptorship Program is started by Dr Quentin Young at University of Illinois, Chicago, providing courses for medical students, nurses and community health workers, who learned about the health care system from each other as well as from progressive mentors. Several CWLU members eventually enroll.

Vernita Gray starts a Gay and Lesbian hotline out of her South side apartment.

WRAP women and others in WITCH's garb hex the head of the University of Chicago Department of Sociology, Morris Janowitz in response to the firing of Marlene Dixon)

Sit-in at the University of Chicago to protest the firing of feminist sociology professor Marlene Dixon.

October 31- Founding of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union (CWLU), with the showing of the play Everywoman: Past, Present and Future.

1973

January 22- Supreme Court strikes down many state abortion laws with the Roe v. Wade decision.

Congress allows the first female page in the House of Representatives.

Singer Helen Reddy wins a Grammy Award for her song "I Am Woman" which becomes the unofficial anthem of the movement.

AT&T agrees to end discrimination in women's salaries and to pay retroactive compensation to women employees.

The National Black Feminist Organization is formed.

More than three hundred women from 27 countries attend an International Feminist Planning Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their goal is to create an international movement through global conferences.

Olivia Records, a women's music record company, is founded, and issues Holly Near's "Hang in There".

Office workers form Women Employed in Chicago, Women Office Workers in New York, and 9-5 in Boston.

Naiad Press, Lesbian book publishers, started by Barbara Grier and Donna McBride.

The first CWLU co-chairs are chosen as part of the group's effort to build a long term organization.

Artemisia Gallery, a gallery for women artists is founded. (named for artist Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the first women artists to achieve recognition in the male-dominated world of post-Renaissance art)

200 women attend the founding conference of Women Employed (WE) which becomes a voice for the rights and aspirations of Chicago's working women.

CWLU members organize the Abortion Task Force (ATF) to assist low-income and minority women gain access to abortions in the wake of Roe vrs. Wade.

In a groundbreaking study, Chicago NOW’s Marriage, Divorce, and Family Relations Committee determines that nearly half of child support payments were unmet.

August- Chicago NOW hires the organization’s first full time staff person

Chicago NOW along with local chapters around the country files law suit against Sears for sex discrimination and in April 1977 the EEOC found reasonable cause to believe Sears was violating federal law.

The CWLU Planning Committee forms, and co-ordinates major International Women's Day demonstration on March 8.

The Committee to End Sterilization Abuse (CESA) is formed which includes the Puerto Rican Socialist Party(PSP) and the CWLU.

A struggle begins over anti-gay attitudes within the CWLU, most notably those held by members of the Revolutionary Union.

Lesbian Group (later called Blazing Star) affiliates with the CWLU.

Chicago hosts the founding convention of the Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW)

1975

The United Nations sponsors the First International Conference on Women in Mexico City.

For the first time, federal employees' salaries can be garnished for child support and alimony.

National Right to Life PAC organized to to stop women from obtaining legal abortions.

Phyllis Schlafly organizes Eagle Forum as an alternative to "women's lib," in support of voluntary school prayer, law and order, and a strong national defense, and against busing, federally funded child care, and abortion.

Susan Brownmiller's Against Our Will on the ubiquity of rape is published.

NOW sponsors "Alice Doesn't" Day, and asks women across the country to go on strike for one day.

Joanne Little, who was raped by a guard while in jail, is acquitted of murdering her offender. The case establishes a precedent for killing as self-defense against rape.

Chicago Coalition to End Sterilization Abuse formed.

Health Evaluation and Referral Service (HERS) forms and lasts until the 1990's.

Culmination of RU struggle results in expulsion of one member from CWLU and voluntary withdrawal of several others.

National Conference on Socialist Feminism is held in July--CWLU is involved in the planning, and Liberation School sponsored study groups in advance of the conference.

Asian Women's Group affiliates with the CWLU.

Another major struggle begins in the CWLU pitting the majority of the organization against members who uphold a "Two-line Struggle" position which opposes gay liberation, the ERA and the CWLU's traditional socialist feminism.

Illinois Coalition against Domestic Violence is formed.

Mountain Moving Day Coffeehouse for women and children opens.

1976

Redbook magazine polls its readers about sexual harassment. 90% of young women say they view the situation as serious.

A bill that defines a "person" as "a human being" from the moment of fertilization is signed by Louisiana's governor.

A movement to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Dade County, Florida, is led by singer Anita Bryant.

ERAmerica is launched to promote the ratification of ERA.

The Organization of Pan Asian American Women forms for women of Asian and Pacific American Islander descent.

Barbara Jordan becomes the first African-American and first woman to give the keynote speech at the Democratic National Convention.

Supreme Court decision agrees with General Electric that the company's failure to cover pregnancy-related disability is not discriminatory.

Both the House and Senate pass the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits the use of federal Medicaid money for abortions.

Many professional and women's organizations decide to boycott those states that have not passed the ERA and to hold their conferences elsewhere.

The first marital rape law is enacted in Nebraska, making it illegal for a husband to rape his wife.

CWLU Co-Chair and Planning Committee elections not held due to internal chaos.

CWLU suffers a political split in March- "Two Line" supporters are expelled. Other members leave because of disagreement over how the dispute is handled.

Summer- Liberation School folds

The National Alliance of Black Feminists organizes in Chicago.

1977

Houston, Texas, witnesses the First National Women's Conference, at which twenty thousand representatives, women from all states, gather to pass a far-reaching National Plan of Action.

National Association of Cuban-American Women formed.

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence established.

Eleanor Smeal, president of NOW, demands that homemakers should have their own Social Security accounts.

The American Civil Liberties Union asks the Rhode Island Supreme Court to allow women to use their own names, rather than that of their husbands.

The Air Force graduates its first women pilots.

January- Chicago NOW became a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Metropolitan Chicago

April- CWLU disbands after an 8 year existence.

July- Chicago NOW wins lawsuit against the City of Chicago for sex discrimination of hiring and promoting employees.

The Illinois Caucus on Teenage Pregnancy (ICTP) is initiated following a conference to discuss the national problem of increasing teenage pregnancy. United Way provides a part-time staff person- Suzanne Hinds.